Two Rocks
by Layla Reyne
Summary: This is not what she had in mind when she suggested they grieve together… Elena sits vigil, with the company of friends and family, at the graveside of two fallen heroes.


**Two Rocks**

**By: Layla Reyne**

**Summary**: This is not what she had in mind when she suggested they grieve together… Elena sits vigil, with the company of friends and family, at the graveside of two fallen heroes. WARNING: CHARACTER DEATH. Written for LJ A2A Delena Holiday Exchange.

**A/N**: An angsty holiday card from a beta to her author – in answer to Yolanda's (0123Hope) LJ A2A Delena Holiday Exchange Prompt: _Tear my heart out. Break me down. Crush my soul. Surprise me. I dare you._

And I guess in a roundabout sort of way I also answered my own prompt – LOL. Apologies in advance to PBK! _**Special thanks to Pilar for her invaluable beta assistance and to my lovely pre-readers, theatrics, chellethebelle and ElvishGrrl.**_

**Disclaimer**: The characters and other things from The Vampire Diaries are not mine. All due credit to the rightful holders.

* * *

Elena couldn't say for sure how long she'd been sitting there. A few days, a week, maybe longer. Just staring at the two rocks in front of her. One was engraved with a name, a birthdate that she knew was wrong and a reminder that the man laid to rest beneath it was loved. The other rock was nameless and without dates, because his "real" gravestone was across the cemetery in an ancient family crypt. This one was engraved with a simple truth – one that he'd tried to keep hidden, even from himself, for nearly two centuries, but was there to be discovered by anyone that had cared enough to look beneath the ruthless smirking surface.

A GOOD MAN, BROTHER AND FRIEND.

She ran her hand lovingly over the raised words, repeating the motion she'd made at least a thousand times during her vigil there. They were cold and hard to the touch, but the warmth and longing that stirred in her heart each time she read them, each time she traced them with her fingertips, reminded her so much of him.

Of them.

Visitors and memories, angry words and blinding tears, had come and gone, leaving her numb and exhausted from defending the truth of those words, the honor of the man that they had represented, and the certainty that her heart had belonged to him then, now and always.

* * *

_Stefan and Caroline were the first to visit. When she didn't return to the Boarding House that night, they found her the next morning right where they'd left her. Right where she'd fallen to her knees the day before - in her black dress, hair in a loose bun (his favorite), eyes red-rimmed, and tears silently streaming down her face._

_Her bloody hands still clutching a bouquet of red roses. _

_The pain of the thorns cutting into her skin repeatedly, over and over again, had been the only thing to keep the oh-so-tempting-nothingness - hovering at the edge of her consciousness - at bay._

_She knew immediately who they were by their slower-than-average heartbeats, the distinctive cadence of their steps, and the smell of his shampoo and her hairspray. Closing her eyes, and holding her breath, she willed back the wave of nausea and the swell of rage that coursed through her as they approached. _

"_Are you happy now?" She snapped, unable to mask the anger that seeped into her voice._

"_You're miserable and hurting. Of course, I'm not happy," Stefan replied. The gentle, placating tone of his voice reeked of condescension, and she found herself growing more livid with each passing second. Did his tunnel vision know no bounds?_

"_This isn't about me, Stefan," she bit back, twisting to look over her shoulder at them. "I know it may be hard for you to understand, but the world does not always revolve around me - or you for that matter. This is about him," she said, pointing back behind her with one arm. "Your brother is dead, Stefan."_

"_He knows, Elena. He's been a wreck all night," Caroline interjected, coming to kneel beside her and reaching out a hand. "Damon wouldn't want this for you."_

"_And how would either of you know what he would want?" She seethed, swatting Caroline's hand away and leveling her with a cold stare._

"_Elena-" Caroline sighed, her voice a mixture of hurt, confusion and sympathy, even as she recoiled a few paces._

_She looked again between the two of them. Caroline, staring at her as if she couldn't fathom why she was so upset and helpless to leave this cemetery, and Stefan, standing beside her, his hands buried in his pockets, shoulders slumped and head bowed, in his too-practiced stance of contrition. He'd stood before her in that position countless times, and because so many of those instances had only been a show, had only been Stefan playing the role of the "good" repentant brother, she couldn't say for sure whether or not, in this instance, he felt any real remorse for his brother's death. Her heart ached that doubt even existed, that it was warranted, because if the circumstances had been reversed, she knew there'd be no doubting Damon's grief over the loss of his brother. _

_Turning away from them, she cast her eyes back to his gravestone, running her fingers across the inscription again, and appreciating the certainty, the truth, and the conviction behind every action that Damon had taken and every word that he had spoken, whether she'd agreed with him or not. She would make them understand._

"_You two thought you knew him. You were so sure that he was the bad brother, but you had no idea who he really was," she declared, rising to her feet and walking toward them, roses still clenched in her hand. _

"_How many times did he save your life Caroline? Defend you to your parents?" She hissed at the blonde. _

"_And do you have any idea how many times he stepped aside for you?" She said, directing her increasingly angry gaze at Stefan. "How he met me first, before my parents' accident, but compelled me to forget him because he'd wanted me to get everything that I was looking for? How he told me that he loved me then compelled me to forget it because he thought you were the one that deserved me? How even after I transitioned he encouraged me to make it work with you? How he invoked the sire bond to send me away because he wanted to do right by you?" _

_She stalked closer and closer to him with each question until she was directly in front of him, staring him down, clenching the roses tighter, the blood from her hand punctuating every statement as it hit the grass. _

"_He let me go, over and over again," she continued, her voice softening with the sadness of so many missed opportunities. "Because he thought it was the right thing to do. Because that's what a good man, a good brother, does. He did what you never could."_

"_Elena, I had no idea," Stefan stuttered, shaking his head, his eyes filling with the horror-struck realization of just how wrong he had been._

"_Of course, you didn't. And for all his selflessness, what did he get in return?" she asked, slamming her fists against his chest and sending him flailing to the ground. Caroline rushed to his side, placing a hand on his shoulder. Elena stood over them, unrelenting in her anger, in her determination to prove them wrong, as she pointed an accusatory finger at her ex-boyfriend and ex-best friend. _

"_You two sold him and Jeremy out for a cure that didn't even exist, that I wasn't even sure I wanted. All because of your incessant need to fix something that wasn't broken. Well congratulations, I'm broken now and there's no fixing me," she cried, tossing the now-battered roses at them. _

_Brushing the tears from her eyes, she wiped her bloody palm against her dress and collapsed again in front of the gravestones, exhausted by her outburst. Caroline tried to reason, to apologize, but after a wearily pleaded "Please just go," Stefan quieted her and led her away._

* * *

A cold wind ripped through the cemetery, causing Elena to shiver a second before she felt the first drop of wetness on her nose. She looked skyward as the snowflakes began to fall and swirl around her, and she gasped in wonder now that she could see, could appreciate, each individual flake with its own unique design. She pulled the jacket she was wearing snugly around her, rubbing her cheek against the soft leather collar and inhaling his scent, wishing that he was there to share this first with her. She pulled a blanket out of the satchel beside her, throwing it across her outstretched legs, and said a silent thank you to the friend who knew her best.

* * *

_She heard the roar of the F150 engine the minute he pulled into the cemetery parking lot. It took Matt a good bit longer than her previous visitors to find his way through the weeds, the branches and the rows of gravestones, but before long he was there, draping one of Damon's leather jackets over her shoulders and pulling other provisions from the satchel he'd brought with him – a change of clothes for her, a couple of blankets, an insulated cooler with several blood bags, two old-fashioned glasses that were probably swiped from the Grill and a bottle of Damon's favorite bourbon._

_Pouring two glasses, he handed one to her, and they clinked them together in salute to the fallen drinking buddies. _

"_He never stopped saving a seat for Mr. Saltzman," Matt said quietly. "If he can't be here with you, then it seems right that he's there with him." _

"_I thought so too," she replied, downing her shot. "Neither one of them was perfect. None of us are. They were just better than most of us."_

_He sat with her all afternoon, keeping her company and trading stories about Damon and Ric's various misadventures. And when the sobs overwhelmed her from time to time, he pulled her into his arms, tucking Damon's jacket tightly around her and rocking her until the tears subsided. Alternating between pouring her shots of bourbon and blood, he took care of her as best he could, until it was time for him to leave for his shift at the Grill. _

"_You call me if you need anything," he told her, standing to leave. "Anything, Elena."_

"_Thank you," she said, grabbing his hand and giving it a grateful squeeze good-bye._

* * *

As sunset cast its reddish-orange hue across the cemetery, she pulled another blanket from the bag and wrapped it around her body to ward off the nighttime chill. The snow had stopped, and even though the air continued to grow colder, she heard animals scurrying about, taking advantage of the brief respite in the weather, to gather any bits of food they could scrounge from underneath the snow. She dug in the bag and pulled out a couple of packages of oyster crackers that Matt had packed along with the tomato soup she had eaten a while ago. She tossed the crackers out on top of the snow, just past the gravestones, and watched a few small wrens and finches pick at the unexpected food. Then there was a loud caw and the smaller birds flew away as a large black crow landed amongst the scattered crackers. Elena leaned forward on her knees, captivated by the otherworldly gracefulness of this creature. It paused for a moment, cocking its head and looking straight at her, before continuing to pick at the crumbs. She remembered how, when the Salvatores had first come into her life, her best friend had had a vision of a crow and predicted it was just the beginning.

Understatement of her life.

* * *

"_I've been meaning to ask you something." _

_Hearing the smile in Bonnie's lilting voice, Elena looked up as her friend lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the cold ground next to her. Sure enough, there was a sly grin playing at the corners of her mouth. Bonnie pulled the blanket loose that was wrapped around Elena's legs so it would cover them both, just as they'd done a hundred times before while watching a movie or gossiping about boys. _

_Bonnie jostled her shoulder and whispered in a conspiratorial tone, "Was it good?" _

_And Elena laughed, for the first time since that terrible night. _

"_Yeah, it was good," she answered wistfully, leaning her head on her best friend's shoulder and shutting her eyes, letting the memories play like a picture show in her mind._

Their first time had been an act of surrender. A concession to the more than a year of pent-up tension - tension that had sparked when they'd flirted on a deserted road, and had ebbed and flowed tortuously since, before reaching an all-consuming level that night at the corner of somewhere and nowhere in Colorado. A deference to the months of depending on each other during their darkest and loneliest hours, never more so than during her transition, as she got her first real taste of the judgment he'd labored under for the past one hundred and fifty years. An acceptance of the heady aphrodisiac of his unconditional love and limitless devotion. She'd been helpless to deny what her heart and body had wanted for so long.

That first time she hadn't been able to get enough of the feel of his strong chiseled jaw, had caressed it constantly - much like he'd held her face so many times before. And the softness of his disheveled hair as she'd run her fingers through it, tugging it in the throes of passion.

And he hadn't been able to get her close enough, hitching her thigh around his waist and smoothing his hand up along it and under her skirt as he'd crushed her body against his next to the fireplace, and into his with each thrust as they'd moved together in his bed, as if he were afraid that she would vanish at any second.

Neither of them had gotten enough of each other's mouths - lips, tongues and teeth - consuming each other whole. One or the other of them had repeatedly brought them back to that most intimate of connections, their touchstone. When they'd finally come together - sitting upright, on equal ground, she in his lap moving up and down his length, the both of them clutching at each other's sweat-slicked skin in ecstasy - her hand had found its way to his jaw again and his smiling lips had captured her own. Both of them had been unable to contain the wonder, happiness and relief that came from letting go, of being there for each other body and soul, of finally being able to revel in it.

Their last time had been an affirmation of everything that they had thought was real the first time. After she'd told him no, had disobeyed his orders, enough times for him to believe that the sire bond no longer dictated her feelings, that she had mastered control of her actions, and as the threat of death hung heavily over their heads, they'd clung to each other desperately, memorizing the feel of every inch of skin, the sound of every needy growl and moan, the taste of each other's breath and blood…

The undeniable look of love that had shone in both their eyes.

Confirming with each kiss and thrust that what they had was real. And as he'd lain in her arms after their release, both of them spent but unwilling to be parted, her legs still wrapped around his waist to keep him inside her, and with one hand combing through his hair and the other stroking his back, she'd softly whispered "I love you" in his ear. She'd felt his wide smile in the crook of her neck before he'd turned his head toward her, locking her sated brown eyes with his too-bright-blue ones. She'd brought her hand to his jaw, marveling again at that face she knew meant that he was happy.

"I know," he'd acknowledged with a smirk, holding her gaze a moment longer before brushing his lips against hers and whispering, "I love you too," in return.

"_I'm sorry for my part in all of this," Bonnie said, bringing Elena out of her memories and back to the cemetery. "I didn't know what Shane had planned."_

"_Damon knew something was off with him. We should have listened," she responded, touching the inscription on his gravestone again. "Some sire bond."_

"_He was always right," Bonnie replied, simply._

_Elena raised her brows in surprise at such an admission from the last person she'd expected._

"_What? It's true," she answered, shrugging in response to Elena's questioning look. "Of course, when I bring him back, I will deny having ever said anything."_

"_Too late. He already heard it," came a voice from behind them. Her brother's voice. Elena's amused chuckle ended with a gasp, her eyes widening at Jeremy's implication._

_Bonnie was on her feet and making her way over to her hobbling brother before she could say anything. Steadying him with a hand on his arm, she reached up on her tiptoes to give him a quick kiss before shooting him a stern look. "You're not supposed to be out of bed yet."_

"_This is where I need to be right now. With my sister," Jeremy replied, his tone leaving no room for argument as his eyes shifted over to Elena. Nodding, she pulled out the two glasses and the bottle of bourbon Matt had left behind earlier._

"_Okay," she heard Bonnie say. "Call me when you're ready to go, and I'll take you home." _

_A moment later Bonnie's small hand was on her shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze, before she was gone and Jeremy was taking her spot on the ground next to her. _

"_This is not what I had in mind when I suggested the three of us should grieve for Ric together," Elena said sarcastically, passing Jeremy his glass. She'd made the suggestion when Jeremy and Damon had returned from the Lake House. They'd never had the time, or the opportunity, for a real funeral for Ric, and she'd wanted their family to properly mourn his passing before all hell broke loose again. _

_Unfortunately, hell had come sooner than they'd expected._

"_Well, we were an unconventional family," Jeremy replied, reading her thoughts. "So we'll grieve unconventionally too. They're still here with us, Elena."_

"_I assumed as much," she replied, tossing back her drink before tugging Damon's jacket more tightly around her._

"_Do you want to talk to them?" He asked, finishing his own drink and pouring each of them another._

_Chest tightening and tears springing to her eyes at the thought of all the things she wanted to say to the both of them, she opened her mouth to speak, but her voice failed her. Rendered mute by the gigantic lump in her throat, she shook her head, wiping away the tears that began to leak from her eyes._

"_Then I'll just have to speak for the both of us," Jeremy responded. _

_Tears continued to fall as Jeremy's words - his eulogy for the two men whose gravestones lay before them - spilled from his lips, enfolding her in their embrace. He thanked Alaric for taking care of them, before and after his death, though he had no legal or blood ties requiring him to do so, for training her to be strong, for opening his eyes to the reality around him and for loving their Aunt Jenna the way she always deserved to be loved. For Damon, he reiterated his firmly held belief that he was a dick, but he was a dick that loved his sister well and true. He never turned his back on her, always protected her, challenged her, and ultimately, by stepping between his Hunter's stake and his sister's heart, he'd given his life for her. _

_Even a dick knew that neither of them would have been able to live with themselves had Shane's plan come to fruition._

"_He was the best thing for you," Jeremy stated with absolute certainty, as he pulled her into his arms when she couldn't hold back the sobs any longer._

_A little while later, when she was all cried out and Jeremy was preparing to leave, she found her voice again. "I need you to do something for me, Jer." _

"_Anything, Elena."_

_Capping the bottle of bourbon with just enough left in it for one shot, she handed it to him. "Take this bottle and throw it off of Wickery Bridge for me."_

_His eyes held hers for a moment, flicking briefly to a spot over her shoulder, before then settling back onto hers as he nodded and dragged her into a hug. "I love you, Elena," he answered, dropping a kiss on the crown of her head._

"_I love you too, Jer. Thank you for this."_

"_To family," he replied, tipping the bottle in salute._

* * *

A flutter of wings and the scratch of claws against stone caused Elena to open her eyes, and she was surprised to find the crow perched on Damon's gravestone, cocking its head from side to side and staring at her again.

"Hi, Bird," she said, a ghost of a smile flitting across her face as she reflected again on how much had changed in a year. No longer was the crow in front of her "creepy". Now it was a dark, beautiful, misunderstood creature that was just trying to stay alive, looking for a place to call home.

She couldn't help but wonder if this crow, sitting atop his gravestone, now symbolized the end for her.

Their staring contest was interrupted when the rumble of an engine startled them both. The crow flew away, up into the surrounding trees, and Elena's heart skipped a beat because she knew that sound. It called to her like a siren song, sparking a tiny flame of hope deep inside of her heart.

As that flame began to flicker more brightly, and she rose to her feet preparing to dash to the parking lot and into his waiting arms, it was extinguished at the sight of her double making her way through the gravestones, moving toward her in that deceptively casual manner she'd perfected during her five hundred plus years of immortal existence. She was like a snake slithering through a maze, her target in sight, and Elena's anger flared to life again. Her stance now defensive, she watched Katherine make her way toward her. She was grossly mistaken if she thought that now was a good time to provoke a fight, that Elena was in any mood for one of her patented power trips.

Katherine, of all people, had absolutely no right to be there.

"What are you doing here?" She demanded, moving to stand protectively between the intruder and Damon's gravestone.

Katherine continued her approach undeterred, glancing around the makeshift campsite. "I take it by this vigil that you finally made your choice."

Her tone was slightly scornful, and Elena replied in kind. "Why do you even care?" She snapped, her irritation growing with every step her doppelgänger took.

Stopping less than a foot in front of her, Katherine met her gaze with an uncharacteristically soft expression. "Because he deserved to have someone love him completely, and with their whole heart," she answered, genuinely, without any trace of the arrogance or thinly veiled disgust Elena was used to hearing from her ancestor's wicked mouth.

Completely disarmed by Katherine's admission, Elena sagged as the fight went out of her and exhaustion rushed back in. "But I never wanted him to die for me," she sighed, stepping aside and giving Katherine a clear path to Damon's gravestone.

"On the contrary, you saved him," Katherine replied, a sad smile on her face as she reached out and tucked a stray lock of hair behind Elena's ear. "More than you'll ever know. He was returning the favor. And now I'm going to do the same."

"What do you mean?" Elena asked, her brow furrowed, baffled by the radical shift in her double's attitude.

Moving around Elena to kneel in front of Damon's gravestone, Katherine traced the words in the same way Elena had when she'd begun her vigil there.

"You found the good in him, which was no easy task after what I did to him, and after he'd buried it for so many years," she explained. "I owe you for bringing him back to life, back to the man I loved in 1864."

Katherine's lips quirked up sardonically when Elena gasped in shock at the affectionate words. "Don't act so surprised. I'm not completely heartless," she replied, coming to stand in front of Elena again. "But that's not the point."

"Then what is the point?" Elena asked, confusion giving way to annoyance.

"You feel guilty," Katherine started, shifting the conversation again, and Elena knew the hole in her heart would only grow bigger as she continued. "For his sacrifice, his death. For getting to live your life while he is gone. And you're filled with regret for the time you wasted apart, denying what was as plain as day - even to me the minute I walked back into this God-forsaken town. There is a painfully long list of what-might-have-beens in your head. And that list keeps growing."

Elena didn't realize she'd begun to cry again until she tasted the salty tears on her upper lip. She lifted her right hand to brush them away but Katherine grabbed her wrist, looking down and running her fingers across Damon's daylight right that was on Elena's thumb.

"You're weighing your options," she continued. "You can stay here and protect Jeremy, but Damon trained him well and you'll only be a temptation. He'll have to constantly fight the urge to finish the job that Damon died preventing. Or you can let the guilt and regret consume you, take off these rings, and burn here with him."

Elena snatched her hand back, turning away from Katherine and cradling her hands against her chest. Her heart was pounding, faster than it ever had since her transition, because Katherine had given voice to the thoughts that had been plaguing her since Jeremy's visit.

"However, there is a third option. And that's why I'm here," Katherine said, packing up the supplies scattered around the gravesite.

"I can flip the switch," Elena murmured, turning back around as understanding dawned.

Katherine nodded, throwing the satchel over her shoulder. "We leave town. I keep an eye on you, continue to teach you how to be a functional vampire, because God knows there's no one left here who can do that, and we give Bonnie time to work on bringing him back. And if that day comes, I'll bring you home to him. And if it doesn't, I won't hesitate to stake you and put you out of your misery."

Katherine held her stunned gaze for a moment longer before starting back through the cemetery toward the parking lot. "I'll be waiting by the car," she called over her shoulder.

Elena hated that she was right. Katherine was the last person she ever wanted to need. She was a conniving, manipulative, self-centered bitch that had ruined her life and the lives of those around her more times than she cared to count. But, aside from Damon and perhaps Elijah, she had never met anyone more adept at being a vampire, especially when it came to survival. Elena needed someone who could keep her alive but who also couldn't care less if she died, if her reason for living ceased to exist. It was a detour she couldn't have predicted, but it was the only path she saw back to him one day, be it on this side or the other.

Kneeling before the gravestones again, she reached out both of her arms and ran a hand across each. Leaning forward and shifting slightly, she placed a lingering kiss on Damon's gravestone before sitting back up to see the crow watching her from a nearby branch.

"I'll be back," she told him, "When it's our time again." She ran her fingers across the inscription one last time and then raced to the parking lot before she could change her mind.

She found Katherine standing next to the Camaro, nonchalantly checking her nails and impatiently tapping her stiletto heel.

"How do I do this?" Elena asked.

"You can feel it, just on the edge of your consciousness," Katherine answered, stepping forward and cupping her face with her palms, reminding Elena so much of Damon that it physically hurt, and she was sure in that very instant that there was no other option than what she was about to do. "Close your eyes and let it in. Turn it off."

Closing her eyes, Elena felt the edge that Katherine had described and willed herself not to fight it anymore, to let it crash over her, washing away the pain and guilt that consumed her. And just as suddenly as she made that decision, she was empty, serene and at peace for the first time since the light had gone out of his bright blue eyes.

She opened her own, and she knew that hers were now exactly identical to the ones staring back at her. Katherine held her gaze for a few seconds longer, making sure this latest transition was complete, and then dropped her hands, stepping back and moving around to the front of the car.

"Nah-uh," Elena called after her, holding out her hand. "I'm driving."

Katherine tilted her head. Elena tilted hers in silent reply, meeting the challenge and glad to now be on equal footing with her.

"Fine," Katherine said, tossing Elena the keys and retreating to the passenger side of the car.

Elena slid in behind the wheel, feeling the smooth leather beneath her fingers. Knowing the car was flooded with his scent, she inhaled a cautionary breath, testing the switch, and was pleased when the crippling guilt and regret failed to appear.

She looked over at Katherine, her boot propped up on the dash, and promptly knocked it down. "Respect the Camaro. It's a classic, though nowhere near as old as you."

Katherine rolled her eyes then looked out the car window. "So where are we headed?"

Elena took in the snow covered Town Square, the gloomy grey sky, and the prospect of the long cold winter ahead. She wanted to, needed to, chase the chill from her bones. "Someplace warm," she answered, making a u-turn in the middle of the street - burning rubber and leaving tread marks in her wake – and heading south, past the "Welcome to Mystic Falls" sign and away from the solitary crow sitting vigil atop the last signpost in town.

**THE END**

* * *

**A/N:** Thanks for reading. How about leaving a holiday gift for this author in the form of a review… It would be very much appreciated! Follow me on Twitter or Tumblr for updates!


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